


Just Taking in Everything

by CountlessUntruths (KaliCephirot)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Galaxy Garrison, Kinda, One-Sided Relationship, Pre-Kerberos Mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 16:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14937446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaliCephirot/pseuds/CountlessUntruths
Summary: Shiro looks at him a moment before he actually does. "Why do you want to fly, Keith?"Keith looks at Shiro for a moment and then he snorts, almost laughing. "Isn't that a Friendship 101 kind of question?""Nah, that's what's your favorite color. This is 201," Shiro says, putting on his drill-voice for a moment before he smiles at Keith again, shrugging one shoulder. "I did mean to ask before, but... c'mon, Keith. Would you have answered me honestly if I had asked when we just met?"





	Just Taking in Everything

_ So we talked about mom's and dad's _  
_ About family pasts_  
_ Just getting to know where we came from_  
_ Our hearts were on display_  
_ For all to see_  
_ I can't believe this is happening to me. _   
"18th Floor Balcony" Blue October.

Nights after a storm hits the desert are always cold, cold enough that Keith, whose blood runs hot and he is terribly sensitive to the cold, would try to avoid them on his own.

But of course Shiro loves them and when Shiro, perfect soldier of the Garrison, had turned to Keith with a barely hidden grin and asked him if he wanted to break curfew and go for a ride on Shiro's hoverbike, well. It was hard to feel cold when Shiro's arms had been wrapped around his waist as he let Keith run the bike as hard and fast as Keith could make it.

Totally worth it because a part of Keith is keeping a mental tally of how many days he has left of this until the Kerberos mission launches and all the days that are going to be between that and Shiro coming back, and totally worth if once Shiro says the should stop and then they're lying down on the ground, stargazing and drawing make-believe constellations just because.

(He's particularly proud of the guffaw Shiro made when he pointed to a cluster of stars and said it was Iverson yelling)

Keith crosses his hands over his stomach, using Shiro's stomach as a pillow just because he can and of all the things he would ask of Shiro _this_ one he knows won't be refused, more than okay to keep just like this until Shiro decides it's time to go back, when he hears Shiro shift a little. He glances at him and Shiro is giving him that smile that Keith knows he shouldn't think as his for-him-smile, but he does and it does stupid, bothersome things to his insides.

"What?"

"You know... I don't think I ever asked you. I always meant to ask and then never did."

"Ask, then?"

Shiro looks at him a moment before he actually does. "Why do you want to fly, Keith?"

Keith looks at Shiro for a moment and then he snorts, almost laughing. "Isn't that a Friendship 101 kind of question?"

"Nah, that's what's your favorite color. This is 201," Shiro says, putting on his drill-voice for a moment before he smiles at Keith again, shrugging one shoulder. "I did mean to ask before, but... c'mon, Keith. Would you have answered me honestly if I had asked when we just met?"

Which... point, really. It'd taken Shiro months before Keith had finally, finally believed that he wasn't going to get backstabbed, that this was someone he could actually trust.

"It's stupid," Keith says. "God, it's _so_ lame and stupid."

"Keith. You have no idea how many times I've heard that someone's reason is because 'chicks/guys dig pilots'," Shiro says with a look on his face that says that even his saint-like patience runs thin on that one. "It can't be worse than that."

"Well, no, but..." He feels himself blush in embarrassment, and he stops looking at Shiro for a moment, looking at the sky as if to hope for some sort of event to interrupt this, but the sky remains sparkling against the blue-purple-black dark velvet of the universe. The kind of nights his dad loved the best.

"God, this is stupid," Keith says, pushing himself to sit up, leaning against his hands to keep looking at the stars and not at Shiro, because if he does he knows he's going to lose his nerve.

"Okay, so... I never knew my mom. She left when I was a baby: no note or anything besides my knife. Dad had this weird way of always trying to defend her that I guess came from, you know, not wanting your kid to feel unwanted because your mom left you, right? He always said that she had to go to keep us safe, bullshit like that. I must have asked a million times. I don't know how the old man didn't just go crazy with that."

He can feel Shiro's eyes on him. Keith doesn't allow himself to turn to look at him.

"Anyway... I did kinda believe that keep-us-safe story when I was little. With the knife and all I used to imagine all these movie-like scenarios where my mom ended up saving the world and then coming back for dad and me. And. Y'know.

"

He shrugs, once, then he rolls his shoulders, feeling awkward and off. It's common enough for him to feel that way, 'tho, so it kind of settles him, in a weird, roundabout way.

"

So this one time when I was... five or six, I guess. Can't remember. The point is that I still believe the story about how my mom didn't want to leave us but left to keep dad and me safe, right. So I ask my dad if he thinks mom is ever coming back for us. Which I had asked before, and the answer was either 'yeah, sure' if it was a good day or 'maybe' if it wasn't."

It's not always that missing his dad hits him. He's been without his dad most of his life by this point, and most of the memories Keith has of him have gone gray and dusty with age. But, talking about this with Shiro, Keith can almost, almost remember how his dad's voice sounded rough and warm like sun-warmed stones, can almost feel him close. He waits a moment until he's sure his voice isn't going to do anything embarrassing like break or tremble.

"But this time, instead of that, dad looked at me and... I guess he already knew he was sick, because he looked... I dunno. As if he really wanted that to happen but knew it wasn't going to. Hopelessly hopeful, if that makes sense? And he says 'I hope so, buddy,' and then instead of looking sorry he grinned at me. 'If not, maybe you'll go to her'.

'Go where?' I asked him."

"To the stars," Shiro answers for him in a soft voice. Keith feels his throat tighten for a moment and he nods. Shiro waits until he finds his voice again, and he is kind enough not to mention how rough it sounds.

"Yeah. Anyway, I bought it, hook, bait and sinker, and for dad... it was a good way to pass time with your kid before dying. He bought me some airplane models and a few astronomy books up until he died a little before I was eight. I mean... I don't think I'm going to go to Mars and find my mom or anything, don't get me wrong, I'm not stupid. But that's what started it for me."

And the quiet, constant feeling of not belonging on Earth, moving from foster home to foster home and family after family and simply wanting to go. At High School he ran as fast as he could and when he started riding hoverbikes he went as fast as they possibly could and maybe with a ship then he'd be able to finally go as fast and far away as he could until he could actually fit inside his skin the way he should be.

Shiro remains quiet. Keith wraps his arms around his knees, and tries not to bristle. One of the first things he had learned as an orphan was not to talk about his sob story because they always involved pity and sorrow, or mockery and disdain and he doesn't know what he'll do if he sees any of those on Shiro's face.

"Well... you're close enough these days," Shiro says. Keith glances at him and Shiro smiles at him, soft and full of something that is definitely not pity in his eyes. "Give it two, maybe three years and you'll be up there."

"... yeah, right," Keith snorts, relief making him almost giddy. He can't stop himself from shivering, and it's bad enough that Shiro notices, moving to sit by his side, taking off his jacket and draping it over Keith's shoulders before he can say anything at all.

"I'm serious," Shiro says, and his arm is still sort of around Keith's shoulders until he's almost kind of holding him and Keith is kind of almost leaning against his side. Shiro's smile (for him) is so warm and soft. "I'm certain that by the time the Kerberos mission is complete and I'm back, you'll have been made sargent at the very least, if not already on your way for your first mission on space. Three years, tops, we'll both be traveling among the stars. Both of us."

And it's ludicrous, really, but Shiro sounds so sure and it's been so, so long since Keith believed in impossible stories that... perhaps this just one time...

"Yeah, well... Maybe."

It's worth it for the way Shiro smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Subtitle: how many references to canon events I can make without being too obvious.


End file.
